


(Some of) The Ways We Did Not Meet

by elle_stone



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - High School, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, M/M, one shots
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-03-25
Updated: 2017-06-15
Packaged: 2018-05-28 22:54:21
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 6,528
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6348865
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/elle_stone/pseuds/elle_stone
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A series of alternate first meetings. Each chapter is stand alone.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. School Play

His soliloquy needs work, a lot of work—that’s why Miller’s in the theater at 4pm, up on the stage staring at row upon row of darkened seats, shifting from foot to foot and trying to make it sound halfway decent, for once. He goes through it three times and fumbles each time, and each time he takes out his anger by kicking some random piece of the set—which is, he knows, not really fair, and a little bit childish.

“It was definitely a stupid idea to give me the lead,” he decides, with a dramatic and defeated sigh, as he sits down at the edge of the stage and throws his script down by his side.

“Oh, I don’t know,” a voice behind him answers. “I think you were a good choice.”

Miller can tell without looking that whoever it was is smiling, and his surprise—enough to make him jump, he can admit it—slides almost immediately into confusion and then, without pause, into annoyance. He twists around and scowls at this person who’s snuck up on him. Unfortunately, the person is this stupidly cute boy, standing behind him with this hands in the pockets of his hoodie and his hair in his eyes and a big cute grin on his stupid cute face.

“How long have you been here?” Miller asks, which seems like a more important question, right now, than _who are you?_ He’ll get to that one later.

“A while,” the boy answers. He’s wearing scuffed up ancient-looking sneakers decorated with paint splatters; Miller watches the sneakers, not the boy himself, as he walks over and sits down, too, on the edge of the stage, legs dangling over the edge. “Don’t worry, I won’t tell Clarke you were destroying her set.”

“I didn’t destroy anything,” Miller corrects quickly. “Did you really hear all of that?”

“Most of it, yeah, probably.” The boy is still smiling and it’s really infuriating and also really, really attractive. It’s a boy-next-door smile and Miller’s always been dangerously fond of boys-next-door. “You’re too hard on yourself. You’re good. Rough around the edges, but good.”

Miller snorts. He’s got the rough around the edges thing down, at least, in more ways than one. “Yeah, sure, and you’re an expert.”

“I’ve been painting sets and doing stage hand stuff for three years—six productions.” He gives a bit of a shrug. “I’ve seen a lot of rehearsals. I’ve heard a lot of _horrible_ speeches. So I know more than you at least.” He pauses for a moment, then asks, not really a question, “This is your first play, right?”

“Mmmm.” He nods slowly, picks up his script and rolls it into a tube, keeping his hands busy so he doesn’t look too nervous—cute boys are an unfortunate weakness of his, and one he likes to keep under wraps. “I only auditioned to get my dad off my back, anyway.”

“He one of those ‘you’ll never get into college without twenty extracurriculars’ types?”

“No.” Miller grins, and actually forces himself to look up and catch the boy’s eye. “He’s one of those ‘Chief of Police’ types. And I’m one of those ‘no good son’ types.”

In the pause that follows, he almost falters, starts to wonder if that was the wrong thing to say. Maybe boys like this don’t go for the no good sort. It’s hard to read the thoughtful expression on his face.

Finally, the boy answers, “Can’t be such a bad son if you’re here practicing just to make your dad proud.”

_Well fuck, you caught me._

He laughs, and tries to force down the surge of affection he feels for this stranger whose name he still doesn’t know, and pretends it’s the truth when he argues, “Hey, I’m just practicing so I don’t embarrass myself too much. That’s it. The ship’s already sailed on making anyone proud.”

“Hey,” the boy mimics, and puts his hand on Miller’s leg, just above his knee, and leans in close into his space, “I think you’re full of shit.”

If anyone else told him that he was full of shit, he’d end him, but Miller would forgive this boy pretty much anything for his smile alone—another downside of his cute boy weakness, sneaking up on him again.

“You’re bold for someone who hasn’t even told me his name.”

He doesn’t say anything about the hand situation, and the boy doesn’t make any apologies, or move away.

“Bryan,” he answers. “With a ‘y.’”

“Bryan with a y,” Miller echoes, like getting used to the sound of the name, the feel of it on his tongue. “I’m Miller—Nathan, but—”

“No one calls you Nathan. I know.” Bryan pulls his hand away, a shame, but not before giving Miller’s knee a squeeze. “I’ve been sitting in on rehearsals all week, I’ve heard.”

“Oh—right, yeah.” He’s a little embarrassed, but more than that just _annoyed_ , that he’s been sharing space with this beautiful human for an entire week but hasn’t noticed him before now. Possible suggestions, invitations, are circling through his thoughts—what can he say now, that sounds like a date, but not too much of a date, in case he’s wrong, knee grab and killer smile aside, and Bryan’s not actually interested in boys at all? He’s been wrong about that—

“So do you need help running lines?”

“What? Oh—yeah.” He unfurls his script and hands it over, letting their fingers touch for a long beat more than necessary, hoping Bryan noticed and that he feels the same butterflies that Miller feels, half taunting and half promising, telling him that this could work out for once. “Thanks.”

“No problem,” Bryan answers. He’s pretending to look at the script, but his gaze, out of the corner of his eye, is definitely on Miller, and it feels very significant when he says, “Any time.”


	2. Detention

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Minor warning for slurs.

Detention is populated by the usual suspects. Miller’s pretty familiar with most of them by now; he’s here every few weeks because no, apparently he _can’t_ learn to control his mouth, and as he makes his way to his usual seat, he says his hellos to some of his fellow frequent flyers: a pat on the back here and a low-five there. Then he pulls off his hat and makes a quick bow to the teacher, and finally sits, slumping down in his seat. He’s not sure if Wallace hates the beanie because it’s ratty and old or just because he has something against headgear in general, but if Miller’s going to be forced to take it off, he might as well make a show of it.

“Are you done with the theatrics, Mr. Miller?” Wallace asks, in his usually perpetually bored, better-than-you tone.

“I can keep going, if you’d like?”

“I’d rather you not.”

“Your loss,” Miller mumbles, just quietly enough so Wallace can pretend not to hear, gaze sliding around the room to pick up what reactions he can, and grins at the stifled laughter of his friends. From behind him, he feels Connor clap his shoulder like congratulations.

But after that, the mood settles again, and a certain familiar sense of boredom with it. He has his Chem book with him but the thought of actually reading it is unappealing. As he’s flipping through it, though, pretending, thoughts wandering, he starts to get the impression that he’s being watched; a quick glance to his left confirms the suspicion.

The boy might be referred to as an unusual suspect; a newcomer. Miller’s never seen him around before, in detention or otherwise. He looks clean cut, at least in comparison to his neighbors, cute in a conventional way—except that his hair’s a little too long, and there’s the start of an impressive bruise beginning to turn purple under his right eye.

No mystery how he ended up here, then.

Miller pulls out a notebook, flips to a blank page, and scrawls out a note. He pulls out the page as discreetly as he can, folds it in half, and when Wallace is sufficiently distracted, tosses it across the aisle. It lands on the boy’s English textbook, which is open to some random page that he’s obviously putting as much effort into reading as Miller is putting into his Chem work.

The note says only _Impressive_ , but apparently the boy knows what he means.

_You should see the other guy._

His handwriting is, somehow, not what Miller was expecting, and he stares at it for a while, not aware that he’s smiling. The letters are tall and round, broadly spaced; they take up just a little too much room.

_What did he do to get on your bad side? Insult your honor? Steal your girl?_

He hesitates just a little before he adds the last bit. Then he makes sure to watch out of the corner of his eye as the boy opens the note and scans it, just on the off-chance he’ll catch something useful in his expression. Miller’s not certain, but he thinks the boy might roll his eyes a little.

Bellamy makes fun of him for it, but he feels he has a certain obligation to ascertain, if possible, the sexuality of every good-looking guy he meets, just in case.

_Not even close._

Miller can’t answer for several long moments after, because Wallace is looking around the room again, searching out potential troublemakers to force back into line. For the time being, Miller pretends to be angelic. He slides the notepaper under his textbook and pretends to be very engrossed in the periodic table, while he wonders what he can possibly say in response.

Eventually, Wallace returns to his own reading (he’s always staring at these giant art tomes, examining details of old paintings of landscapes or whatever), and Miller pulls the end of the notepaper out from beneath his book. His pen hovers over the page, until finally he writes:

_Cut you in the lunch line? Take your parking spot? Look at you wrong? You want me to keep guessing?_

Another long pause follows. Miller almost wonders if he’s lost him, but when he glances over, he sees the boy staring down at the page, thoughtful, chewing absently on the end of his pen, and then a different worry comes to him: that he said the wrong thing. Maybe he should have backed down, and tried a different topic instead.

The note lands back on his desk.

_Called me a fag._

Miller’s hands ball into fists involuntarily, and he has to bite back the instinct to ask who this motherfucker was, then, so he can have a go at him, too. He tries to catch the boy’s eye again but he’s looking resolutely in the opposite direction, out toward the window as if imagining freedom, his pen between two fingers tapping back and forth against the desk so fast that Miller’s pretty sure Wallace will snap at him to shut up at any moment—so he’s nervous. It must have been a slur that hit too close to home.

_I’m sorry. I would have hit him too._

The next response comes quickly, scrawled a little faster, messier, than the other lines.

_No one would ever say that to you._

The boy’s watching him again. Miller raises his eyebrows, almost a _who, me?_ response, and holds the gaze so long that the boy falters, glances up toward Wallace, sees he’s not paying attention to them at all, and then writes in the corner of his notebook _am I wrong?_ and holds it up, just for a moment, for Miller to see.

_No one has yet. Maybe that just makes me lucky. I’m not in the closet._

It’s harder than Miller expected to read the boy’s face as he looks over the last line. He’s not surprised—maybe a little uncertain. Miller watches as he writes out a few letters, pauses, sets his pen down and then picks it up, then tries again.

_I am. Or I was. I guess Dax has outed me by now._

Dax, another detention lifer, is sitting in the first row, and he’s definitely the worse for wear—impressive, because he’s a veteran of school fights, and he usually gives much worse than he gets.

_ DAX?? _ _He says stupid shit all the time. People around here are afraid of him but all they’ll remember about this is that you took him on and lived. Don’t worry about it._

He would have written more if he’d known that the boy would smile like that when he read the note. That’s a definite grin, there, though visible only for a moment before he covers his mouth with his hand. Miller’s not sure if he’s embarrassed by his reaction or just worried Wallace will notice and get suspicious. There’s no way Dickens is that entertaining.

_Thanks. I’m Bryan by the way._

Bryan. Okay. He should probably be careful about this, forget that his gut is telling him to just go for it, just try, jump—Bryan’s obviously new and at least a little uncertain and Miller’s oddly fond of him already, and protective; he _really_ doesn’t want to fuck this up. And yet. Detention will be over eventually. He doesn’t want them to go their separate ways.

He starts to write out a response— _I’m Nate_ —when he hears a low, disapproving hum from off to his right, a sort of ‘excuse me’ clearing of the throat, and his whole body freezes. It’s completely possible that his blood is now ice. Slowly, he forces himself to look up.

Wallace is looking down at him, arms crossed, lips pursed in a frown.

“Sir!” he says brightly, grinning, and puts his hands down flat over the paper, as casually as he can. If he’s going to go down, he’ll at least go down making Bryan laugh, if he can, and with some effort at self-preservation.

“Mr. Miller,” Wallace answers, completely not amused. He holds out his hand and makes a ‘give it here’ gesture, and then just waits—Miller tries his best to hold out, but eventually, he just has to give in. He folds the paper in two again and then slaps it into Wallace’s hand (that at least earns a frustrated sigh; _kids these days_ ). He’s afraid even to glance over at Bryan. The new boy might not know it but Wallace has a habit of reading out loud any notes he intercepts—so much for staying in the closet.

Wallace spends a very long moment glancing over everything they’ve written. Miller’s stomach is twisting into some very elaborate knots, because he’s pretty sure they’re both _totally fucked_ now, but waiting to know just how bad it will be is worse than the experience itself, he’s sure. He’s just about to say _so am I seeing you tomorrow or what?_ when Wallace hands him the note back.

“I’m surprised, Mr. Miller,” he says, with his usual robot calm. “Two students passing notes about their chemistry homework. How refreshingly responsible. Do try to keep your thoughts to yourself for the rest of the detention though, hmmm?”

“Will do, Sir,” Miller promises, with a little nod of the head. He almost adds _thank you_ , but then he figures it’s implied.

After Wallace returns to his desk, Miller finally dares look over to his left again. Bryan is already staring at him. He smiles and Bryan smiles back, and then, feeling brave, Miller points up to the clock, then to himself, then to Bryan and to the door.

_Want to meet up after this?_

Bryan nods. ‘Can’t wait,’ he mouths, and Miller grins. He doesn’t want to wait either, but he has a feeling that it will be worth it.

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Series also on [tumblr](http://kinetic-elaboration.tumblr.com/tagged/some-of-the-ways-we-did-not-meet)


	3. Campus Medical Center

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> College AU featuring comically-feverish!Bellamy. Inspired by me twisting my ankle at reunion...

Bellamy insists he’s fine, _really_ , just a bit of a sore throat and, okay, he’s a _little_ tired—but that’s because he hasn’t had much time for sleep recently and he’s warm because the room is warm, all right, and—“maybe there’s something wrong with _you_ ,” he adds, poking Miller in the chest with that stupid insistence unique to the drunk and the feverish.

“Yeah, okay,” Miller answers, calmly, but decisively, and turns Bellamy in a loose half-circle toward the door. “I’m taking you to Griffin.”

The campus medical center isn’t exactly known for its helpfulness or competence but Miller’s pretty sure even a pre-med student could diagnose Bellamy with the flu, and maybe if the revelation comes from someone even semi-official looking, he’ll be convinced to stay off his feet for a  few days and rest up. Or maybe not. Bellamy doesn’t like authority figures much. Still, it’s a decent Plan A, before he resorts to Plan B: tying Bellamy to the bed and forcing him to take painkillers and drink tea.

They stumble across campus like a four-legged, two-armed, two-headed monster, Bellamy leaning heavily on Miller, Miller gently correcting and re-correcting their course as Bellamy tries to weave them in the wrong direction. Whoever decided to put the medical center on the far edge of campus was an idiot. Eventually, they stagger across the threshold, and Miller lets Bellamy slide down into a heap on one of the cheap plastic reception room chairs. There. A sense of significant accomplishment fills him. He has to resist the urge to dust his hands off as he heads over to the receptionist’s desk. She’s friendly enough, and nothing he says particularly surprises her, because it is flu season after all: she’s seen plenty of delusional, feverish, workaholics dragged in recently—yeah, someone can see him in a few minutes. Just sit tight.

He turns around to do just that and finds that Bellamy is not where he left him.

The stubborn fool has dragged himself to his feet and started searching for the door, muttering under his breath that he’s _really fine okay_. (Right, of course, Miller grumbles to himself. _Totally_ fine.) Miller strides off after him but he’s just a second too late, and before he quite catches up, Bellamy reaches the doorway and smashes head on into someone else coming in.

It’s a mess.

The newcomer is limping badly on his left foot, barely upright as it is, and the collision might have toppled him completely had he not already been leaning on another boy; the good news is that the two of them together make an accidental but effective barrier to Bellamy’s escape. Unable to go forward, he just stops, and Miller catches up to him easily. Still a confused tangle follows: the limping boy regaining his balance, Miller wrangling Bellamy again, lots of hurried _hey I’m sorry_ ’s and _sorry about that_ ’s all incomprehensibly spoken over each other. It’s awkward, but it’s even more awkward when they _stop_ talking.

That’s when Miller realizes that the limping boy has that rare combination of broad shoulders and soft eyes that totally fucks him up every time.

“I’m sorry about him,” he says, one more time, and steers Bellamy out of the way so the other two can sit down. “Are you sure you’re okay?”

“I’m sure, I’m fine,” the boy answers, punctuating each phrase with an uneven step closer to the plastic chairs. His friend helps him down uneasily into the closest one. An extra reassurance from the injured party, and a yeah-you’re-fine-man pat on the back from the friend, and the second guy is heading off to the receptionist. Which leaves the three of them alone. Miller gently pushes Bellamy back into the one of the chairs and then sits next to him, one hand on his arm to keep him from getting up again.

Miller makes it about three seconds before he has to sneak a glance over at the unfairly attractive guy—and when he does, he finds he’s been beaten to it. Their eyes meet, just for a moment (he doesn't believe in sparks, but there might have been a spark), and he immediately looks away again. Clear his throat. Tries to recover. “My friend—he’s in denial about having a fever—”

“I do _not_ have a fever.”

“See?” Miller gestures shortly, and the boy grins and answers:

“It’s fine. You think it’s that flu that’s going around?”

“No,” Bellamy answers forcefully, leaning forward in his seat like he's about to start a lecture, at the same time as Miller answers, “Yeah,” and then, pushing Bellamy back again, “Just ignore him. He thinks he’s immune to everything and he’s very stubborn. What about you?” He gestures to the boy’s ankle, which he’s propped up on the coffee table. “Sports injury or something?”

“I wish.” He smiles, and rolls his eyes at himself. “No, it’s stupid. I just tripped on some uneven pavement outside Walden. Landed right on my ankle. Guess you think I’m a klutz now, huh?”

A little, actually. But only in an endearing way. Out oud, he says only, “No way. That sucks though. How bad is it?”

“No idea. I don’t think it’s broken, probably just twisted.” He waits a beat, then adds, "I'm Bryan, by the way."

"Nate," Miller answers, with what he hopes and assumes is a dashing smile. He's shooting for somewhere between 'I think you're cute and I hope you're into boys' and 'but if you're not that's cool, I'm just being friendly.' It's a delicate balance. "And this is—"

"He _likes_ you."

Well, fuck, there goes the balance. Bellamy has leaned in so far he's almost falling off his chair, and his attempt at a conspiratorial whisper is not a rousing success.

Miller slides down into his chair, and prays fervently that he might be able to just keep on sinking and sinking and sinking until the ground itself opens up and swallows him. This is _not_ happening, it is not, it is not, it is _not_.

At least Bryan looks more amused than shocked. A small mercy.

"And _this_ is a total idiot who should be ignored, if I haven't already mentioned that?"

Bellamy just shakes his head, and pounds the palm of his hand flat against the coffee table twice. Miller runs his hand over his face—what a fool, he can't stop being dramatic even when he's sick. Actually, he's probably _more_ dramatic when he's sick.

"He _really_ likes you. That's _Miller_. No one calls him 'Nate.' Only his dad and his boyfriends."

"I don't have boyfriends," Miller corrects quickly. It's maybe some consolation that Bryan seems to be holding back giggles. Or that might make it worse. "Not—more that one at once. He means ex-boyfriends. Did I mention he has an _incredibly_ high fever?"

"Yeah, you might have said something about that," Bryan answers, and he's obviously hiding a grin behind his hand now. Gathering at least some composure, he lets his hand fall back down to his lap and clears his throat. “It’s… it’s too bad though.”

Damn that stupid, sweet smile.

“What is?”

“Just… that I was sort of hoping that was the direction this conversation was going.” Whatever hesitance there is in his voice is a total act, and Miller can tell by the way he looks up after, confident and smiling, letting him in on a joke that’s just for them.

Or just for them and Bellamy. He swings his body around and into Miller's space and stage whispers right in his ear, “I like this one. This is a good one. You should spend more time with him.”

This time, Miller just sighs, a what-can-you-do sort of dramatic exhale, and gently pushes Bellamy back into his own space. If he can't shut Bellamy up, he can at least use him to his advantage. “My feverish friend might have a point," he admits, in his own overly-casual tone. "For once.”

Bellamy mumbles something that might be, “I have plenty of points,” and Bryan nods and answers, “Yeah, I think he does.”

“So does that mean you want to—?”

“Yes.” His own quick answer, his own eagerness, only seems to amuse him. He gestures toward his leg and adds, “But—let’s not do anything that requires a lot of walking, okay? Or a lot of hobbling, on my part.”

A few ideas come to mind, but he holds back. (Thankfully, Bellamy does too.) And all he says is, "I think we can come up with something."


	4. Gay Bar

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Part 4, finally, featuring background Harper/Monroe and Jasper/Monty.

"This was a bad idea.” 

The room is dark, and the music is incredibly loud, and he mumbled his words down into his drink on purpose, not really intending anyone to hear. But still Jasper, standing off to his left, yells, “What?” in the vague direction of his ear, so he assumes something must have come through. 

“Nothing,” he shouts back. He can’t help but feel proud that the words sound grumbly even at this volume. And that should be the end of it except— 

“It’s not a bad idea,” Harper insists. She must have superhuman hearing because she’s a bit farther away than Jasper, or maybe she can read lips, or maybe she just guessed his thoughts based on the look on his face or the slump of his shoulders. He’s not exactly having a great time. Miller just glares. She makes a face back. “What? At least we got out. I cannot handle another weekend just sitting around being lame.” 

“No, Miller’s right,” Monroe sighs, leaning back with her elbows on the bar behind her. “Sitting around a gay bar without actually doing anything is way more lame than staying in and not doing anything.” 

Miller nods at that, and so do Jasper and Monty, practically in unison in that almost creepy in sync way they have. It’s hard not to feel pathetic when he’s standing clustered around a bar with his friends, getting vaguely, uselessly buzzed, while everyone around them dances or flirts or hooks up—and if he thought it would somehow help his mood to people-watch stupidly good-looking men with whom he probably has pretty much no chance, then he was clearly out of his mind. 

“Well at least we’re trying,” Harper says, making her own effort to salvage the mood. 

Monty shakes his head. “I wouldn’t exactly call this trying.” He sounds deflated, and the feeling is obviously spreading. 

The problem is that it’s been a hard year for them all, a year of almost unbelievable bad luck, like they’re the targets of some big, unfunny cosmic joke. From Harper’s surgery, to the fire at Monroe’s house, Jasper’s now ex-girlfriend moving cross-country and Monty’s parents divorcing: it’s always something, for each of them. Miller himself can claim no more than an aborted attempt at a relationship, an almost-relationship really, with a very tall, very dumb, very unfaithful basketball player, which isn’t a big deal really, in the grand scheme, so he pretends it doesn’t still bother him. 

“Right, so let’s actually try,” Harper says, into the too-long pause, and grabs at Monroe’s hands to pull her toward the dance floor. “Come with me. Dance.” She wiggles her eyebrows, moves Monroe’s hands to her waist and that’s that, Miller thinks, it’s definitely going to be just the guys still drinking at the bar now. 

“You’re not being very subtle,” Jasper points out, unhelpfully.  

Miller rolls his eyes. “You are literally standing behind Monty with your arms around him, I don’t think you can talk about subtlety.” 

“I didn’t mean it as an insult,” Jasper answers, with a slight shrug, and hugs Monty closer, burying his nose in his hair as Harper and Monroe wave a short goodbye to them, then disappear into the crowd of people on the dance floor. 

Miller passes his hand over his face and takes another drink, a long one this time. “Just—warn me before you start making out so I know when I’ve officially reached fifth wheel status, okay?” 

“I can’t believe you would accuse us of that,” Jasper says, in a faux-insulted tone, at the same time as Monty deadpans, “We would never, _ever_ make out in front of you,” and Miller just holds up his hand because he cannot handle both of them together when he’s in this mood. In the pause that follows, his gaze starts to wander, again, in the same direction it’s been wandering all night. He’s been pretty discrete about it, but among all the distractingly, disproportionately handsome men he’s caught sight of since they arrived, one in particular has become a terrible distraction. 

Unfortunately, he’s pretty taken. 

Also unfortunately, Miller hasn’t been as careful as he thought in sneaking glances. 

“Just go up to him already!” Jasper shouts. A new song has started and it’s louder than the last, more frenetic, so he both raises his voice and tugs on Miller’s sleeve to get his attention. 

Miller swats his hand away but doesn’t bother looking at him. Instead, he keeps looking over to his right, at the beautiful boy with the light brown hair and fucking perfect arms, the boy who almost makes him forget about the basketball player entirely, the boy he might even consider approaching if he weren’t currently in the middle of a very extended make out session with some spiky-haired dork. “I don’t know what you’re taking about.” 

“Don’t you think that would be a little awkward?” Monty’s saying, and if he’s acting as if he didn’t hear a word Miller said, that’s fine: Miller’s not exactly paying attention to his friends either. Since he’s been caught out, he might as well just forget being subtle. “It’s not like he can just tap him on the shoulder and say, ‘hey, can I cut in?’” 

“It’s not like he has anything to lose,” Jasper counters. “Aren’t we trying to be less boring? Since we’re here?” 

“I don’t think sending Miller on an embarrassing social-suicide mission is being less boring—” 

“Hey, which one do you like, anyway?” Jasper’s tugging on his sleeve again, semi-insistent. “The brown-haired one, right? He seems like more your type.” 

Miller’s not sure how he feels about having a ‘type,’ and he’s even less sure how he feels about Jasper knowing his type, if he has one—but his friend isn’t wrong. The spiky-haired kid is just blocking the view. Even from this far away, a quarter of the bar between him and the wall the boy is pressed up against, he can see enough to tell that this is one serious marathon kiss, and also that the boy is _good_. The way he smiles between kisses, the way his hand grips his spiky companion’s hip and the other slides up to the back of his neck, the way he sometimes pushes forward, sometimes pulls the other guy closer—okay, Miller knows he should _really_ stop staring. But he can’t. 

“I don’t have a type,” he says finally, belatedly. 

“Yeah, right,” two unimpressed voices answer. 

Miller sighs—a sigh that Monty immediately labels as ‘dramatic,’ as in ‘don’t be so dramatic,’ and swivels around on his stool so he’s facing away from the dance floor and away from the amorous couple, too. Jasper and Monty, whatever their faults, at least know when to take a hint, and they drop the topic of the brown-haired boy immediately, picking up instead a will-they-won’t-they debate about Harper and Monroe that they’ve had going now, on and off, for several weeks. Miller tunes them out. He’s on the they-will side himself, but Jasper’s got those arguments covered and also thoughts of the basketball player are surfacing again. 

He was a bad idea from the start, and Miller was smart enough to know it, but he doesn’t always think clearly where good-looking boys are involved. It’s probably better that this new guy is taken, because with Miller’s luck he’s probably bad news too. He’s probably the sort of person who doesn’t know what he wants—or who knows really well that what he wants are meaningless hook-ups and flings—or— 

“Hey.” 

Monty is nudging him, semi-discreetly, and tilting his head in the direction of the ardent pair. Miller’s just about to tell him to shut it when he adds, in a stage-whisper, “Spiky Hair is gone.” 

And so he is. 

The other boy is still standing right where he was, with his back up against the same wall, but he’s alone now, and he looks a little dazed and a little uncertain and a little unsure what to do with his hands. He is clearly trying to catch his breath. Now that Miller can see his face—it’s rounder somehow than he was expecting—he’s even more certain that he must avoid this guy at all costs. 

“You have to go up to him now,” Jasper’s insistent voice interrupts. Even when Miller scowls at him, he remains completely unfazed. “What? He’s by himself. You have no excuse.” 

“His boyfriend will probably be back any minute,” Miller answers.  

That sounds like an _excellent_ excuse to him, but Monty’s already shaking his head. “I don’t think that was his boyfriend. I just saw him heading for the exit.” 

“Alone,” Jasper chimes in. “Leaving _him_ alone. Go.” 

“Go or we’ll start making out in front of you,” Monty adds. 

Miller’s half-sure this is a bluff, but with these two he can’t really be certain. Plus, they’ve also both taken to nudging and poking him, which is the sort of thing that gets very annoying, very fast. He breaks after only a few moments. “Okay! Fine. I’ll say hello. But when it goes badly—” 

“ _If_.” 

“And it won’t.” 

“You two are buying me drinks.” 

He turns away before either of them can say anything else, and as soon as his back is to them, he makes a face and visibly steels himself. He’s approached guys before, no big deal. And if this seems different, somehow, scarier, more nerve-wracking, it’s just because he’s been psyching himself out all night. And maybe also because the basketball player left more of a scar than Miller wants to admit. His hands ball into fists, painfully tense, the stub-ends of his nails digging into his palms—he has to force his fingers to straighten and stretch because _relax man you’re fine_ —he's fine and the bar isn’t very long, and look, he’s already here. 

“Hi.” 

The boy startles, as if, off in his own world, he hadn’t even noticed Miller’s approach. For a half-second he looks startled. Then he smiles. And _damn_ his smile. Miller forces himself to stay cool, though, and smile back, and introduce himself: “I’m Nate.” 

“Bryan,” the boy answers, and then runs one hand through his hair. Miller wonders if this is a nervous gesture. That the kid who was so confidently searching out the tonsils of Spiky Hair a few minutes ago could be nervous now, in front of _him_ , is a revelation. He won’t let himself think that it’s probably not nerves, so much as confusion: he’s still in that make-out headspace, and now some stranger is trying to pull him back to reality again. 

“This is quite a place, huh?” Bryan is saying. He pauses, then laughs a little, as if to a joke only he can hear, and passes his hand over his face. “Sorry—I was just about to ask you if came here often but then I realized what a cliché that is.” 

“I think that’s my line anyway,” Miller answers, smiling too. The hard beat of his heart is starting to calm just a little, to something pleasant, a little bit of optimism sneaking in. 

“Aw, come on.” Bryan reaches out, prods him just above the elbow. “You can do better than that.” 

This boy’s grin is going to be the end of him; he tries to reign himself in, keep his voice light. “Not under this sort of pressure.”  

“You could at least ask me my sign or something,” Bryan suggests, in what Miller is starting to think might be a flirty tone. 

And he counters, “Or your major,” and tries not to get up his hopes. 

"Mmm, okay." Bryan pulls himself up onto one of the bar stools, forcing Miller back a little—though not too far—and rests his chin in his hand. "Sometimes, but not that often. Taurus. And Biology. Now it's your turn." 

Miller crosses his arms, rests them against the table, and pretends he has to lean in to be heard over the noise of the music, the other chatter. "First time," he says, and prays very quietly and very quickly that Bryan won't make any sort of virgin joke here. He doesn't. "Sagittarius. English." 

"Ooooh," Bryan makes a concerned, overly skeptical face. "Science and Humanities, I'm not sure this will work out." 

"Try me," he dares back. "I have plenty of science nerd friends. Like those two dorks over there." He gestures behind him at Jasper and Monty (both watching them, both trying to pretend they are not). "Computer Science and Chemistry. It's like they're speaking another language half the time." He pauses, considers who he's talking about, then adds, "That might be a Monty and Jasper thing, though, not a science thing." 

Bryan glances over at the nerds in question, then looks back to Miller and raises his eyebrows. "You third-wheeling with them tonight?" 

"Fifth-wheeling," Miller corrects. Then: "Unofficially." 

"Mmm, right." Bryan nods in understanding and swivels on his stool, leaning back against the bar. "I know how that is. No one's _technically_ together, but they might as well be, and then you end up," he shrugs, "alone at the only gay bar in town on a Saturday night." 

Miller's just about to say that he isn't alone, really, he has his friends, when Bryan adds, apparently out of nowhere, "I'm not usually like this," and Miller frowns. "I mean—I've never shown up at a bar just to… flirt with people and….” He waves his hand vaguely. He’s blushing, and it clicks. Spiky Hair. An aberration, an experiment, maybe already a source of embarrassment. 

"Hey, it's cool," Miller cuts in quickly, breaking off the awkward pause in Bryan's words. "Me neither. I mean I'm not just here to—" 

"Hook up?"  

He looks up at the same moment that Bryan does, their gazes catch, and some inside joke passes between them, something not in words that nevertheless makes them both smile at once. It's not an awkward or tense moment—more funny than anything, how they each assumed the exact same wrong thing about the other, at the exact same time. 

Somewhere behind him, he's _sure_ Jasper and Monty are high-fiving. 

Which is just another way of saying he feels totally smitten. 

"So..." Bryan draws out the word, swiveling on his stool again like he might do a complete three-sixty spin. "Short of hooking up—how do you feel about dancing?" 

Usually, honestly, pretty terrible. But for Bryan, he'd be willing to tone down his usual opposition to leaving the safety of the dance floor sidelines. 

"I could give it a try," he answers. 

Bryan grins like he sees right through him, slides off his stool, and grabs for Miller's hand. "Good. It'll be fun," he promises. 

Miller wants to say that he doubts it, and they'll just have to see. But somewhat unexpectedly, it is. 

 


End file.
